QES Headteacher's Messages 2017-18

Summer 2018

Originally emailed on 20 July 2018

Dear Parents and Guardians

As we come to the close of the academic year I wanted to send you a brief email thanking you for your ongoing support this year.

Yesterday’s glorious Sponsored Walk had a truly celebratory feel, as did the Sports Day earlier this week; in both whole community events there was a buoyant and positive feeling bringing the end of a vibrant and busy term to a fitting close. Whilst getting over a thousand people walking on the fells is an epic undertaking, and it certainly looks and feels a community event on a grand scale, as is often the case it is in the small gestures where a true sense of what we stand for comes through; Sixth Formers filling younger children’s water bottles, children supporting one another in the final miles of a hot day of walking, and staff and children chattering their way through the beautiful countryside we are so lucky to have around us.

I can give you a quick update on the building works. The compound in the centre of school has worked really well and we hope the main corridor, library and staffroom will be open early September, with the move of pastoral staff and Learning Support planned by October Half Term. Whilst this will mean a little continued disruption at the very beginning of term, by the early Autumn there should be a much improved area at the centre of school enabling us to care for children in properly housed spaces and opening up the centre of the main building in a really positive way. Work has started on the new QEStudio building too and it will be exciting to see it emerge on our landscape over the coming months.

This week we have been saying goodbye to long standing members of staff that many of you will know well; some of them might even have taught you! Jan Percy, John Stanley, Roger Davies, Sarah Lomax, Garry Rowlands, Kathryn Kay and Carole Falcus have clocked up between them over 120 years of service to our community, teaching and caring for thousands of young people during their time here. The quality of their work, their commitment to QES and their warmth and good humour will be sorely missed. Our job for September is to make sure that their legacy is truly honoured by moving us onwards as a special community that keeps children at its heart.

Finally I’d like to end with my personal gratitude for your ongoing support in my first year as Headteacher. I continue to feel it is an absolutely privilege to work with such a fantastic group of children and young adults, such a talented and dedicated staff and such a supportive parent body. Thank you.

I hope you have a lovely summer and that your child returns to QES in September feeling refreshed and excited by the new term.